Monday, November 30, 2009

One of my favourite detective of all times is now in a movie, although there's a lot of Sherlock Holmes movie made :p. I've always been a fan of Sherlock Holmes, the private detective in the 19th century that lived in 221b, Baker Street, London. Even though it's fictional, there's really a Sherlock Holmes museum in the same address. I've been there for a visit when I went to London a few years ago. Too bad I don't have digital camera at that time.

So when I heard that I get a chance to watch Sherlock Holmes on the 22nd of December, two days before the premiere on Christmas' Eve from Nuffnang, of course die die I must post this blog post to get myself invited. Seriously, the clues are a dead giveaway. Well, Nuffnang is always very good.

Sherlock Holmes 2009 starring Robert Downey Jr. (yes, Mr. Tony Stark) as Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. Watson. This will be a very different Sherlock Holmes indeed. I watched the trailer and I found it to be more like a 19th Century James Bond lol. I do hope the sarcastic remarks and quirkiness of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is still there.

I wished the clues are more difficult, how to be Sherlock Holmes when it's a dead giveaway? I was already a Sherlock Holmes apprentice when I started reading Sherlock Holmes in my primary school's days. Two of my favourite stories are "A Study in Scarlet" and of course "The Hound of Baskervilles". This is not even elementary Watson. (Actually Sherlock Holmes never did says "It's elementary, Watson." in the stories). If you thought Redrum is an episode from CSI, think again. It actually appeared in one of Sherlock Holmes story. Redrum is actually Murder. The power of deduction. ;)

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Continue with my Singapore trip. The day after the Nuffnang Award Dinner, the foreign bloggers were treated to a 1 day tour of some of Singapore's interesting places thanks to Uniquely Singapore (Singapore Tourism Board). We were grouped into a few group, each group will go to same place at different time. At the end of the day each group will have visited all the same places but at different time of course. Chris and I were grouped into Group A, so our first stop is Mint Museum. It's just behind Raffles Hotel, which was supposed to be our real first destination.

Zoe Yve & Wei Wei, Group C members that woke up late and has to follow Group A first.

It consists of 5 floors, each floor will showcase rare mint toys of different theme and different time. Admission fee to the museum is SGD $15 for adult and SGD $7 for child. There's a restaurant in the basement if you don't want to go on a tour in the museum.

We were brought up to level 4 first, if I'm mistaken. A very experienced curator, whom previously is a Master Jeweler is our guide. Level 4 is Robots or Sci-fi. There's robot toys from different time and different country. You can see that the colour that like to be used from different country is different from each. Japanese toys tend to has a lot of improvement or more features.

For Star Wars fans.

Mickey Mouse earlier versions.

The first version Felix the Cat is one ugly cat with a tail that looks more like a third leg lol.

Apart from being a rare mint toy museum, the design of the museum also won architecture awards.

The transparent floor in the 3rd floor.

The wonder of the design also is because the 4th and 5th floors are actually hanging in the middle.

I took the picture of 4th and 5th floor from 3rd floor.

Not only toys can be found. This is a autographed postcard of The Beatles. Which is very rare now because you won't be able to get John Lennon and George Harrison autograph anymore.

Popeye with tank.

The top floor is a pub that was decorated with a lot of very old and rare signage. The curator told us happy hour rate here is damn cheap.

One can take a very good picture of Raffles Hotel from the balcony of the pub.

Even the restaurant in the basement were filled with rare posters of food and beverage product.

The architecture award that Mint Toy Museum won in 2007.

The curator told us that the collection showcase in the museum is only less than 10% of the total collection that the owner has. The rest of the collection is kept in a very big warehouse somewhere. Crazy!!! The value of each toy ranged from a few hundred USD to about thousands or maybe even hundred thousands of USD.

One should really drop by here once at least in his or her lifetime to find out the history of toys. Nowadays the toys are just mass produced and in low quality. The collection are swap every 6 months.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

I went to two movie screening recently. One is a disaster movie 2012 and another is a blood & gore action flick, Ninja Assassin.

2012

The story is as what a disaster movie is all about. Discovered that there will be a E.L.E happening in the near future. Execute plans to prepare for E.L.E Near E.L.E found out that it will happened sooner than estimation. During E.L.E, show people from different parts of the world how to face the judgment day and see how the lead actor (John Cussack) miraclely escaped near death event while trying to get his family to the safe point. The only thing that change is what causes the E.L.E and the method used to safe the world from total extinction of species.

Sorry Mr. President sir but the E.L.E will be happening much sooner.

Cliche story aside, this kind of movie will make you think about the world that we are currently living in. E.L.E will happen in the next 50 years or so if we don't stop polluting the environment. With global warming and all. There's already signs like flood, tsunami, earthquake and abnormal weather changes happening recently. Play your part to help the environment. Say no to Plastic Bags. Save paper, use the hand dryer instead of the paper towel after you do your thing in the toilet. Save power, turn off any electronic appliances if not in use, I know most of you do not turn off your PC even when you are not using it lol.

"I wondered if it is meteor again this time."

The CGI in the movie is great. See how the volcano is chasing John Cussack in the ass lol, the White House is destroyed once again (ironically by a US aircraft carrier lol) and loads of earthquake, and tsunami scenes. Proud to mentioned that one of the 3D animator is our homeboy from Malaysia, Ng Chun Seong, younger brother of Super Wilson. Look out for his name in the ending credits yo! Another sad case of brain drain in Malaysia.

What do you know? Chinese saves the day.

Why does the US President always has such a pretty daughter?

Hailed! Chun Seong and his colleagues for the great effects.

Rating: 3.5/5 for the story and Rating: 4.5/5 for the CGI (0.5 less is to give room for improvement for the next shocker)

Ninja Assassin

Showing it all in all major cinemas on November 26th 2009

First, I like to thank Yee Hou for teaching us an easy way to spell assassin with ass-ass-in lol. After watching this movie, I can only say one thing. It's all about Rain and Rain only lol. There's so many scene that you can see him showing off his muscular body that he purposely put up hours of training for this movie.

Rain showing off his body.

As Robb put it," Ninja Assassin - Guys enjoy watching the limbs chopped off, girls enjoy watching Rain's topless body, gays enjoying both." Yupe, secretly I wish I can have a body like Rain in the movie but I am too damn lazy, so forget it. I like the blood & gore in the movie legs sliced, blood purging out, fingers lost and etc. I find the blood is a bit too fake though. No thanks to our moral inspector in the censorship board, there's a few cut here and there, violence and vulgarity I guess. Yet, there's a few vulgarity that they missed (on purpose?)

Again showing off his body.

It will be nice to watch the fighting scene if it's not for the camera shaking like the cameraman was put on a earthquake testing machine. Yes, I know, you're trying to show how fast the ninjas move but hey, you don't have to make me dizzy, I fainted how to watch? Also, the extra skill that was added into the story makes me feels like I was watching Naruto and Bleach. Suddenly ninjitsu is so magical -_-

Why she didn't show?

Bleach fans should watch out for the shunpo like fighting in the end lol. Lucky there's no Bankai, if not I'll really be RLOF in the cineplex.

No, this is not Bankai.

Rating: 2.5/5

On the side note:

I went for the Ninja Assassin Flash Mob that happened in Sunway Pyramid. I took the video and upload it to Youtube. Then it got quite high viewership. The most view as compared to my other Youtube videos. Not to mention quite a feedback too. Here's it is for your viewing pleasure.

Talk about coincidence. When I was putting up this post to Innit. See what is the word verification? "bleach" is this a pure coincidence or what?

Monday, November 23, 2009

Time to blog about my Singapore trip. Phew!! Too many obligatory posts in the past few weeks that I have not time and space to blog about my Singapore trip. Let's start of with food. Can you believe that I ate in the food court in Tiong Bahru Market for 3 days in a row while I was in Singapore for 3 days? Well, there are two reasons for that, too many good food there and it's just across the road from Link Hotel (5 minutes walks) where all the Nuffnangers were staying.

Day 1:

We arrived at Link Hotel around 4 p.m. and I was only be able to check-in to my room at about 5.30 p.m. and that was not without the hassle of getting a wrong room number first. By 6.30 p.m. we have to get ready but my sister, my mum and my niece were here to meet up with me. So, we make a quick trip to Tiong Bahru Market food court for a quick bite.

Seeing my niece Ruth makes me calmer even after the long wait and the mistakes made by the hotel staff. Not enough experience to handle such a big group check-in I think. We're about 120 strong.

Teochew Fishball Noodle, Tiong Bahru Market

The fish ball, fish cake and fish wantan is really good. One can really taste fish, unlike some that mixes too much flour or too much MSG in it. The sauce that mixes the noodle tasted a bit bland though. Next time I'll just order the fish produce with soup and skip noodle.

Rating: 3.5/5

Fish ball noodle SGD $3.5 (I added extra fish wanton)

Tiong Bahru Fried Kway Teow

My sister ordered what she referred as "white char kway teow" (CKT ala Singapore) as opposed to what we Malaysian make our char kway teow. I don't want to argue about whether char kway teow is a Singaporean or Malaysian pioneer food. Both version has similarity yet very different.

The "white char kway teow" is wet version of char kway teow much like the KL CKT. It's white maybe because it uses light soya sauce instead of the dark soya sauce. Pork lard is no where to be found in it. Penangites will spit on this white version. I myself also thinks that Penang CKT still rock my socks, even the normal one. My Malaysian taste bud really can't get used to this version of CKT. Well, it's always good to try on different things in a foreign country even if it's not as good as you'll expect it to be. Funny thing is there was quite a long queue of customer ordering from this stall.

Rating: 2/5

Tiong Bahru Fried Kway Teow SGD $3

Day 2:

The day after the Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards dinner, me, WeiZhi, Chris, Christine, Swee San and her friend planned to have breakfast in Tiong Bahru Market before we go for our 1 day Singapore tour sponsored by Uniquely Singapore. This place is of course recommended by me lol, which my sister recommended. There's still a few good stuff that I haven't been able to try yesterday.

Tiong Bahru Fish & Chicken Poriddge

I felt like having porridge. It's been a while I haven't take porridge in the morning. So, I ordered a raw fish slices porridge. The raw fish slice is really smooth. Eat it with the warm porridge, which will cooked the raw fish slice in just a matter of seconds. The fish was marinated with sesame oil, soya sauce and granished with ginger and spring onion. It's really hard to describe the feeling of mixing all this into the warm porridge and take a scoop of it. All I can say is "Delicious". Sorry I forgot the price. Should be around SGD $4.

Rating: 4/5

WeiZhi bought us some very nice kueh mangkuk lol, sorry I forgot what it's call in Hokkien. I know Cantonese it's call "put chai go". This is one of the best I've ever tasted. You should really try this if you are here in Tiong Bahru Market food court.

Rating 4.5/5

Tiong Bahru Pau

My sister told me the egg tarts from Tiong Bahru Pau is very nice but alas the first day, it was sold out, the second day it's not ready T_T But, the fried minced pork popiah here is very nice too. I bought some for WeiZhi, Chris and Cristine yesterday, and this morning WeiZhi bought it for us lol. This is just one of the Tiong Bahru Pau outlet, there's a few more outlets in Singapore. My sister told me the HQ is just somewhere behind Link Hotel.

Rating: 3.5/5

Teck Seng Soya Bean Milk

My sister recommended this soya bean the day before but they were closed. So day 2 morning, we all go for this. The queue is seriously long. Thank you Chris for queuing up to buy the soya bean for us ;)

Swee San had cincau & soya bean milk mix

My small soya bean milk

My tao fu fah (豆腐花)

I know why the queue is so long because the soya bean milk and tao fu fah were really worth the wait. WeiZhi told us she still prefer the tao fu fah in Ipoh. As for me, I think the one here has a more solid feel while the one in Ipoh is more watery. Both has it's pro and con.

Rating: 4/5

Christine and Chris shared their yam cake, chee cheong fun and economy fried noodle. The queue to these stalls is quite long too or maybe it's just because Singapore is very densely populated lol.

Christine's Yam cake and chee cheong fun.

Chris' Economy fried noodle

Day 3:

I woke up early at 7am because I slept damn early the night before. While, Chris my room mate is still sleeping (he came back like 3 or 4 in the morning). So, I walked to Tiong Bahru Market for breakfast alone. I really don't know what to eat because I've already been here for the third time in a row now. So, there I was walking around the food court, until I spotted a damn long queue from this stall, no it's not the soya bean milk stall even though the queue also very long there.

Tiong Bahru Lor Mee

Instinct tell me this lor mee must be very nice. Duh.

Got proof!

The lor mee here is more like lum mee in KL. I like the generous condiment of cut chilis, diced garlics and Chinese parsley. Mixed it all up with the gravy and take a bite of the noodle. Satisfaction baby! Of course, you'll have to like raw garlic per se. You can tell the boss not to put any of those. They will let you put the condiments yourself.

Rating: 4/5

And I think the third time is a bliss because I finally able to but some egg tarts from Tiong Bahru Pau lol. It's nice, crispy skin and soft fillings. Comparable to Tong Kee's. Just that the former sweetness level is lesser than the latter.

Rating: 4.5/5

Egg tarts from Tiong Bahru Pau

See, I am so nice I listed down the other outlets of Tiong Bahru Pau here. Click to enlarge:

That is my 3 days in a row Tiong Bahru Market Food Court adventures. I just read that the kway chap here is not bad too. A bit crazy right, one food court so many nice food. LOL.